Description

For months Prince Alexander of Daventry has shut himself away from the world, thinking only of Princess Cassima, who he met while imprisoned in the previous game. Eventually he can take it no longer, and he hires a ship to search for the Land of the Green Isles located on the edge of the world. After months of searching he finally sets sight upon the island kingdom, only for a freak storm to strike the ship, destroying it and leaving him the only survivor. His troubles are far from over, however, as he soon finds out that the King and Queen have passed away, the Greens Isles are on the brink of war, and his beloved Princess Cassima may even be held prisoner by the royal vizier.

Like its predecessors in the series, King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow is a third-person puzzle-solving adventure game. For Alexander to save the Isles, he must travel between the Land's four magical islands, each based on myth and fables, and encounter people and strange beasts that will either help or hinder him. Alexander must be careful as well, because, as with all the King's Quest games, poor choices or missteps will often prove fatal for the Prince. Puzzles are solved linearly, although late in the game there are two completely different paths to take to reach the final confrontation. Like the previous game, actions are performed using a point-and-click interface with icons that represent verbs ("walk", "examine", "use", "talk", etc.).

The CD-ROM version of the game includes both DOS and Windows versions, full speech, a pre-rendered introduction, and the Girl in the Tower theme song.

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Trivia

Amiga version

The back cover of the Amiga version contains information: "Beautiful graphics in 256 colours or 32 colours (two versions available)." but the game was released only in 32 colours version.
According to KQ VI reviews in Amiga Computing, Amiga Format and Amiga Power magazines Sierra originally planned to release a 256 colours version but decided that 32 colours version looked so good already so they shelved the idea.

The game was ported to the Amiga by Revolution Software, though the company wasn't credited on the box or in the manual. This is why this version uses Revolution's Virtual Theatre engine instead of SCI.

CD version

The CD version of King's Quest VI includes Girl in the Tower , the theme song to the game, composed by Mark Seibertm in full length. A sample of it can be heard on the floppy version for five seconds, then the game urges you to ring up radio stations that was listed in the manual and request it. Also the introduction was also extended in the CD version.

Music

Chris Braymen, the game's composer, quoted a Gregorian chant (Dies Irae) in the theme that plays when Prince Alexander is captured in the Catacombs of the Isle of the Sacred Mountain. It's a famous theme, quoted as well in many classical compositions such as Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique (5th part), in Stanley Kubrick's films The Shining and A Clockwork Orange, and also in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (Room of the God Machine).

References

King's Quest VI's villain is named Abdul Alhazred; this name was taken from the work of horror and sci-fi writer H.P. Lovecraft. Abdul was a fictional character (also dubbed ''the Mad Arab'') who wrote the Necronomicon.

Technology

This was Sierra's first adventure game to feature their lipsyncing technology that they got when they bought out Bright Star Technology.

Awards

Related Web Sites

Game Nostalgia (Provides extensive background info for King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow, pictures of the cast and examples of voice-overs, full credits with shots and info about the design team, demo of the game, specific details about the game, various goodies, all musical themes, shots of every location in the game, video clips, saved games, a list of reviews, including a "nostalgic" review and tech specs.)